Near-critical reflection of internal waves

DOI10.1017/S0022112099005108zbMATH Open0972.76018arXivpatt-sol/9902003MaRDI QIDQ4951981FDOQ4951981

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Publication date: 4 September 2000

Published in: Journal of Fluid Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Using a matched asymptotic expansion we analyze the two-dimensional, near- critical reflection of a weakly nonlinear, internal gravity wave from a sloping boundary in a uniformly stratified fluid. Taking a distinguished limit in which the amplitude of the incident wave, the dissipation, and the departure from criticality are all small, we obtain a reduced description of the dynamics. This simplification shows how either dissipation or transience heals the singularity which is presented by the classical solution in the precisely critical case. In the inviscid critical case, an explicit solution of the initial value problem shows that the buoyancy perturbation and the along-slope velocity both grow linearly with time, while the scale of the reflected disturbance is reduced as $1/t$. During the course of this scale reduction, the stratification is `overturned' and the Miles-Howard condition for stratified shear flow stability is violated. However, for all slope angles, the `overturning' occurs before the Miles-Howard stability condition is violated and so we argue that the first instability is convective. Solutions of the simplified dynamics resemble certain experimental visualizations of the reflection process.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/patt-sol/9902003

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zbMATH Keywords

sloping bottominstabilitiestransition to turbulenceBrunt-Väisälä frequencyuniformly stratified fluidgroup of nearly monochromatic wavesreflexion of weakly nonlinear internal gravity wavetwo-dimensional irrotational incompressible Boussinesq fluid

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Internal waves for incompressible inviscid fluids (76B55) Stratification effects in viscous fluids (76D50) Stratification effects in inviscid fluids (76B70)

Cited In (27)

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• A laboratory study of low-mode internal tide scattering by finite-amplitude topography
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• Resonant Langmuir-circulation–internal-wave interaction. Part 1. Internal wave reflection
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• Floquet stability analyses of stratified oscillating boundary layers on adiabatic slopes
• Damping of quasi-two-dimensional internal wave attractors by rigid-wall friction
• Lagrangian coherent structures and internal wave attractors
• Direct and large eddy simulations of internal tide generation at a near-critical slope
• Visualization of nonlinear effects in reflecting internal wave beams
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